Public Bill Committee

[Mr Graham Brady in the Chair]

Ordered,

Resolved,

Clause 1

Chris Williamson: I beg to move amendment 2, in clause1,page1,line3,at beginning insert ‘Subject to subsection (1A)’.

Graham Brady: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 3, in clause1,page1,line5,at end insert—

Chris Williamson: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. It is the first time that I have served on a Committee, and I am pleased to be here.
I will briefly explain the rationale behind the amendments. Norwich and Exeter city councils clearly want unitary status; that is a matter of record. Not only the authorities but the people who live in Norwich and Exeter have demonstrated in opinion poll after opinion poll that they would prefer the authorities to take charge of their own destiny. Unitary councils in Norwich and Exeter would save taxpayers’ money, which is important in the current climate, and they would help to deliver economic growth in the region. It is well known that cities are the drivers for economic growth in their regions, and giving both Exeter and Norwich unitary status would help them to promote the economic regeneration agenda. Importantly, doing so would create jobs for local people, not only for those who live in Norwich and Exeter but for those in the surrounding areas.
The Secretary of State is on record as saying that he wants to put town halls back in charge of local affairs, so why not in Norwich and Exeter? We acknowledge that each application must be considered on its merits, and on a case-by-case basis, but a two-tier structure makes local leadership more difficult and accountability considerably more opaque for local communities. The Conservative party used to support unitary councils, and it created a considerable number of them when it was in government before. My local authority benefited from that policy at the time. Similarly, before the general election, the Liberal Democrats said that they favoured a unitary or single-tier structure for local government. I hope that that commitment will not go the same way as their commitments on VAT and tuition fees. The Labour party can justifiably claim to be the true champion of localism, which is why we supported Norwich and Exeter becoming unitary councils when we were in government. Surely allowing local areas to control their own destiny is the basis of localism.
Amendment 3 would leave the door open for the Secretary of State to reconsider applications from Norwich and Exeter by requiring him to report within three years on whether he will entertain any further proposals for unitary status, and if so, on what basis. The Government need to be straight with the people of Norwich and Exeter about the future of their cities. Are the Government rejecting applications for unitary status for the time being, or will they never allow Norwich and Exeter to run their own affairs as unitary authorities under any circumstances? Singling out Norwich and Exeter in such a way is grossly unfair, and the amendment maintains the possibility that Norwich and Exeter could become unitary councils. As I have said, the Secretary of State is on record as saying that he wants local authorities to run their own affairs in such a way. The amendment would not require the Secretary of State to invite any proposals. It would simply require him to publish the basis on which he would invite proposals. That is a very modest proposal. It would allow the people and their democratically elected representatives from Norwich and Exeter to know where they stand. As things currently lie, people have been thrown into a state of confusion.
The period of three years gives the Secretary of State time to see what happens in the interim, how local authorities are coping in the new financial environment, where savings and better services could be delivered by unitary councils and where the people in Norwich and Exeter still want unitary authorities in their areas. I believe that there is a need for clarity on this issue. There is a danger of a mixed message being delivered by the Government because part 1 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 has not been changed.
Are the Government open to creating new unitary authorities, including Norwich and Exeter or not? If so, on what basis will those decisions be made? As I have said, we need clarity on this. The people of Norwich and Exeter deserve that clarity and the amendment would provide it.

Ben Bradshaw: I shall speak in favour of the amendment for a number of reasons. We have heard throughout the debate that the Government are keen on localism. Indeed, at one stage, the Secretary of State was quoted as saying that his three priorities in office would be, “localism, localism, localism”. We have not had a satisfactory or convincing explanation why, in Norwich and Exeter, that principle should not apply. Why, when we have overwhelming public support in Exeter and Norwich from all the local stakeholders and business communities and, in the case of Exeter, the support of all the four political parties on the city council, including the Conservative party, for Exeter’s unitary status, does localism not apply in those two particular cases?
By withdrawing the unitary status that has at long last been granted to Exeter and Norwich after their 36-year campaign to right the wrong of the 1974 local government reorganisation, no one can argue that by giving those powers back up to the upper-tier authorities—in the case of Exeter, to Devon, and in the case of Norwich, to Norfolk— that that is localism. It is the opposite of localism. It is giving power up. It is centralising power to the bigger, more remote, less accountable authority. At no point has anyone on the Government Benches or, indeed, on the Liberal Democrat Benches tried to make a convincing or satisfactory argument about how the Bill is consistent with localism. The amendment that my hon. Friend has tabled would at least leave the door open.
The other reason why the amendment is worthy of support is that it is not clear to me whether the Bill, as drafted, would prevent only Exeter and Norwich from reapplying for unitary status or whether it applies to all local authorities in the country. It would be helpful to the Committee if, in his reply, the Minister could give absolutely clarity on that matter. We did not receive it on Second Reading. We could, for argument’s sake, imagine the situation in which there was a Conservative-controlled county council and a Conservative-controlled district council. In my experience, all the local authorities in one area being of the same party generally helps in matters of local co-operation. Let us suppose, faced with the very severe spending restrictions and savings that they are having to make over the next few years, that they think, “Come on, unitary local government in our area makes sense. We can work together. We can deliver more cost savings.”
As we all acknowledge, unitary authorities are better value for money; they are cheaper; they are more efficient. Are we really saying that the local authorities in those areas should not be allowed even to make an application or suggest to the Government that they think they can run the services in their area more cheaply, more effectively, and more efficiently if they were allowed to pursue unitary status? Is the Bill a de facto, in-principle road block to bottom-up local government, which is exactly what the Government claim they are in favour of? They are looking for localism. They are looking for bottom-upness.

Stephen Hammond: I am interested in hearing an argument about value for money and particularly in such times, it is something that we are all keen to pursue. However, the right hon. Gentleman will surely recognise what the principal accounting officer argued in advice given to the then Secretary of State, which was that following that course would not represent value for money.

Ben Bradshaw: No, the hon. Gentleman is wrong. The principal accounting officer was saying that what was then the alternative—the boundary committee’s proposal that there would be a unitary Norfolk and a unitary Devon, a unitary Exeter and a unitary Norwich, with the rest of those counties remaining two-tier—was not the cheapest option. Of course, the most expensive option is the status quo, which I will be coming on to shortly. What the Government are ensuring is that we stick to the most expensive, most wasteful option.
Of course, the hon. Gentleman may be in favour of a unitary Norfolk or a unitary Devon but, if he knows anything about the subject, he will recall that those proposals commanded the least support. In fact, the most opposition came from within Exeter and Norwich, and also within those county areas—not least from the districts. Turkeys do not tend to vote for Christmas, as the old political saying goes. Those proposals, which would have delivered even greater savings than a unitary Norwich and a unitary Exeter, had no political support. They were a complete non-runner. They were never going to happen and that is what the accounting officer in the Department at that time was talking about.
I want to move on to savings. The Government are keen on constantly saying that they are interested in making savings—we are all interested in making savings, particularly in the current economic climate. So it seems to be complete madness to rule out—depending on what the Bill actually does—a bottom-up approach coming from either Exeter or Norwich in the next few years, which would deliver the sort of savings that the Government’s own Minister in the House of Lords, Baroness Hanham, made quite clear would be greater under unitary government.
The overall cost within two years would be just under £2 million for Exeter, but after that, the savings would be much greater every year going forward. Those savings are really significant. Are we saying that other local authorities around the country—for argument’s sake again, Conservative-controlled authorities—who want to work together and move to unitary government should not be allowed to do so? In the case of Cornwall, the Liberal Democrats are great supporters of unitary government, and the Labour Government delivered that using exactly the same arguments. Are we really saying that in this day of economic and public spending restrictions, this more affordable, more accountable and more efficient model of local government should not even be proposed by the people at the bottom? The Government are supposed to be in favour of localism and bottom-up democracy, but in the Bill, they are doing exactly the opposite.

Bob Neill: I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Brady. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship on what it is my first Bill as a Minister, and the first on which the hon. Member for Derby North has served as my shadow. I hope it will not be the last for any of us.
With respect to the arguments that have been advanced, the proposition put forward in support of the clause seems to rest on an attempt to drag out an analysis of the Government’s stance on unitary authorities generally—and I will say something about that—but it has been done in the context of a specific piece of legislation, in a way that is wholly devoid of history. Actually, the background to how we arrived at the situation we are in is rather important, as I shall demonstrate in responding to the points made by the hon. Gentleman, and by the right hon. Member for Exeter.
I will start with textual analysis of the amendments. Simply, if the amendments were made, they would allow the Secretary of State to make a replacement order, and that replacement order would have the same effect as a relevant order. A relevant order, as defined by the Bill, means
“an order implementing…a proposal received by the Secretary of State before the commencement of this Act”.
In other words, the proposals relate to Devon, Norfolk and Suffolk, and do not go any broader than that. The measure does not, in fact, achieve its purported objective of requiring the Secretary of State to publish criteria by which any future proposals for local government restructuring would be judged.
That leads me into a very short recapitulation of the background and why we are here. The purpose of the Bill is to draw a final legal line, so to speak, under the restructuring proposals for Devon, Norfolk and Suffolk. It therefore puts an end to a process that began when a Labour Secretary of State invited bids for unitary status from local authorities some years ago. All the bids, except those three, have one way or another been resolved. For reasons that I have explained, those three remain in a sort of legal limbo that now needs to be rectified. So, the Bill puts a full stop to what has been described as a torrid saga, the previous Government’s attempts to force through plans, which were unaffordable, unwanted and unwelcome, because it is not realistic to look at changes to the two cities concerned—
 Chris Williamson  rose—

Bob Neill: I will just finish this phrase and then I will give way. I may be about to deal with the point that the hon. Gentleman was going to raise. It is not realistic to look at changes to the two cities concerned without looking at the impacts on the surrounding counties of which they are part, and that is why I say what I say.

Chris Williamson: The Minister said that the proposals for unitary status in Norwich and Exeter were not wanted. In reality, there was cross-party support in Norwich and Exeter, and indeed the general public there supported the authorities having control over their own destiny. Will the Minister reflect on that and withdraw the comment that unitary status in those areas was not wanted?

Bob Neill: No, because, as I have said, one cannot look at the matter purely in the context of what happens within the boundaries of the cities, because at the moment these two cities are part of the counties. If we remove a considerable part of the population—and the tax base—from the two counties, whatever the arguments in favour from the city’s point of view, there is the potential significantly to undermine the viability of the counties that remain. Those points were well rehearsed and therefore there was considerable objection to the various formulations put forward, but I will happily go through them again.

Ben Bradshaw: Will the Minister give way?

Bob Neill: I am happy to give way to the right hon. Gentleman, who wants more history.

Ben Bradshaw: On that point, does the Minister accept that in all the areas that I can think of, many of which are Conservative-controlled, where in former shire counties the main urban areas have acquired unitary status—Wiltshire, Swindon, Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole—those counties have been perfectly all right? In fact, they have performed better than Devon. If we look at all the performance criteria over the past few years, counties that have lost their main urban centres have performed better because they have been able to focus on their rural needs.

Bob Neill: There is a difference in the demography of all those counties. The particular rurality of Devon, for example, is reflected in the fact that if Exeter were removed, the largest urban unit in the remaining county would be Exmouth, with a population of 37,000 people. It is well known that there are considerable extra costs—potentially—for local authorities in delivering services to overwhelmingly rural populations. Also, a considerable part of the tax or rate base would be removed, and they cannot be seen in isolation.

Chris Williamson: I just wanted to respond to the Minister’s comments on removing, as he put it, Exeter and Norwich from their respective counties. Does he accept that it would provide an economic benefit not only to Norwich and Exeter but to the surrounding counties? There is common ground between us. Cities are the economic drivers in their locality, so that would be a huge benefit to people living in the county. Furthermore, does he not also concede that in terms of the cost of providing services—I am not minimising the difficulties of delivering services in rural communities—many of the most significant challenges faced by local authorities are those challenges posed by providing services in towns and cities where there are often large deprived communities, which require significant resources from the respective local authorities. By removing Norwich and Exeter, that demand would no longer be required of the respective counties.

Bob Neill: I do not accept the logic that the economic prospects of those two cities and their surrounding areas will be improved by artificially disaggregating them from their hinterland, particularly because the bulk of the areas offering opportunities for development in both cities lie outside the city boundaries. Neither do I accept the proposition that the pressures of delivering public services in urban areas are unique to unitary authorities. They exist in many other towns as well.

Neil Parish: What is needed in Exeter and Devon is evolution, not revolution. The Labour amendment is the wrong approach. We must say either yes or no, and I think that, in this case, no is the best answer. It is clear that the city council and county council must work together, share offices and facilities, and cut the cost of the delivery of local government in the county and in Exeter. The right hon. Member for Exeter quoted from various opinion polls, but I can cite another from Exeter in which, of the respondents to a question asking whether the cost of forming a new city council would be a good use of money or resources, 22% agreed, 59% disagreed and 19% had no view. The results of a poll depend on how and to whom the questions are asked. It is right to proceed and to get the local authorities to work together.

Graham Brady: Briefly, please.

Neil Parish: My final point is that, if things continue in the same way for two or three years, the offices will end up working against each other rather than together.

Bob Neill: I am grateful to my hon. Friend.

Ben Bradshaw: Will the Minister give way?

Bob Neill: Perhaps I could first catch my breath and digest my hon. Friend’s substantial intervention.

Ben Bradshaw: I will give the Minister time to do that.

Bob Neill: All right, I will give way.

Ben Bradshaw: If what the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton says is correct, why did the Conservative party in Exeter support the Exeter unitary bid? Its leader was very brave in withstanding the pressure that she was put under by the Conservative party nationally. Was she wrong?

Bob Neill: I will deal with the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton first. He represents the hinterland of Exeter in the county of Devon, and makes two cogent points. First, as we all know, consultations and responses to them produce varying results. It is not realistic, sensible or in the interest of good local government arbitrarily to disaggregate the impact on the services of the county from what happens within the city boundaries. In that context, the most recent consultation took place between last December and January 2010, and more than half of the respondents from Norfolk and 85% of those from Devon did not want any change. It depends which figures one looks at, so I do not think that bandying particular polls about advances the argument.

Ben Bradshaw: Will the Minister give way?

Bob Neill: I know that the right hon. Gentleman is keen to speak, but I would appreciate it if he could be patient for a moment so that I can finish my point. My hon. Friend also raised the important issue of shared services and the way in which joint working between local authorities can deliver better value for money and more effective and more economic service delivery without becoming obsessed with structural issues and change. I will return to that later, but my hon. Friend is right to highlight it.

Ben Bradshaw: I am sure that the Minister would not want a factual inaccuracy to go on the record, but the consultation he mentioned relates to the boundary committee’s proposal for a unitary Devon, to which there was massive opposition, as was the case with the proposal for a unitary Norfolk. That was not the consultation on the proposal for a unitary Exeter, which, as the Minister’s own party in Exeter is well aware, commands overwhelming support in the city.

Bob Neill: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for putting the record right. I will not argue with him, but he leads me neatly to my next point. As I said before this flurry of helpful interventions, when the previous Labour Government sought proposals, they published criteria by which they were to be judged and stated that they would not be accepted unless they met all the criteria. The then Secretaries of State—the right hon. Gentleman’s right hon. Friends—judged that the unitary proposals in Exeter and Norwich did not meet the financial criteria and that the Norwich proposal did not meet the value for money criteria. That is why the proposals were rejected.
The boundary committee was asked to advise on alternative formulations and it proposed county-wide unitaries, to which there was considerable objection. The previous Government concluded that they did not want to proceed with those either. The then Secretary of State, in trying to find a politically convenient solution, ignored the advice of his officials and the opinion of the independent boundary committee and pushed through proposals for Exeter and Norwich that did not meet his Government’s criteria. That is why this Bill is needed. At the end of the day, he suddenly invented exceptional reasons that had not previously been articulated for departing from the criteria. As a West Ham supporter, I am conscious of what it is like to be robbed by a last-minute goal when all seems well, but even though it seemed like it, nobody actually moved the goalposts at Arsenal last Saturday. The then Secretary of State moved the goalposts without proper consultation, which is why his proposals were ultimately struck down by the High Court. That is the background to this Committee.

Chris Williamson: I would like to respond to the Minister’s comment about moving the goalposts. Does he not concede that his party has shifted the goalposts significantly from the last time it was in government, when it created huge numbers of unitary councils up and down the country? As I have pointed out, my authority of Derby benefited from that. If anybody is moving the goalposts, surely it is the Minister and the current Administration.

Bob Neill: I do not agree for one moment. I will come to our broad philosophical view shortly.
I cannot put the point about moving the goalposts any better than Mr Justice Ouseley when he passed his view on the proposals of the previous Labour Secretary of State in the High Court:
“He alerted no one, and none were able to address the principle of changing the role of the criteria or his two specific reasons for now allowing a proposal to proceed despite not meeting all of the criteria. On the face of it, it appears that something has gone very wrong”.
I will not take lessons on shifting the goalposts from Opposition Members, although I know that the hon. Gentleman was not here at that time and was not party to those decisions. That is the background to this Bill and it explains why the amendments would not achieve the objective that has been set out.
I have been asked about our views on restructuring. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State has made clear his stance that it is common sense that through closer collaboration and more joint working, councils can not only save money, but improve the services on offer to people. That is absolutely right and councils do not have to become unitaries to do that. We do not have to spend that £40 million or so, or go through such a lengthy and disruptive process. During previous reorganisations, there was general agreement to the process of creating unitaries, but costs and disruption inevitably arise.
For the record, the Government have no plans to invite new restructuring proposals from councils. However, if the Government decided that it was necessary to invite new unitary proposals, the amendment would still not be helpful. Kicking things back for three years would not help the process one way or the other. The 2007 structure, with the ability of the Secretary of State to invite proposals from local authorities, remains in place. Putting in an artificial three-year limit would not change the situation. There is nothing in the Bill that would stop the Government from inviting proposals for new unitaries if that was deemed helpful for local government. Nothing in the Bill would preclude Norwich, Exeter or anywhere else from putting forward proposals if that occurred. We are not closing the door, but, equally, we are making it clear that we do not have such plans, because, frankly, we do not think that structural reorganisation is a priority at the current time. In the current economic climate, the priority has to be the efficient and cost-effective delivery of local services to people in the relevant areas, which can just as readily be delivered through joint working. There are some excellent examples of joint working in the counties that we are talking about.

Nicholas Dakin: If structural reorganisation is not a good thing, why are we seeing such major structural reorganisations of health and education. Such reorganisations directly affect local government, so why is there no consistency across the whole patch?

Bob Neill: I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would welcome the greater involvement that local authorities will have in the provision of public health services as a result of the Government’s proposals, which are entirely consistent with our policies of localism and handing back power to communities. The palpable difference is that here the joint working is by sovereign local authorities working together, rather than being forced together into unnatural units. That is why there are many examples of this.
There is good collaboration between districts in Somerset and East Devon. In three of the Devon districts there is good collaborative working on the insurance arrangements. There is a Devon procurement partnership, with which I hope Exeter will be closely involved. It is clear that the development of economic opportunities involves close collaborations. Exeter airport, for example, is outside the boundary of the city council, so it is important that surrounding districts work together. In Norfolk there is a well developed shared services agreement between all of the authorities, and I believe that a joint structure plan is in place. So there is collaboration. What we seek to do can be more effectively achieved through collaboration than through the costly upheaval of an enforced reorganisation, so I hope that the Committee will reject the amendment.

Chris Williamson: We want to push the amendment to a Division, because it is important to get on record how people vote on this matter. I am not sure whether it is in order for me to sum up now.

Graham Brady: It is in order if it is necessary.

Chris Williamson: I do not want to take up a great deal more of the Committee’s time. There has been a considerable degree of inconsistency in the Minister’s remarks as he has tried to justify the Government’s position on this matter. He said that he does not want the disruption of further local government reorganisation at this time, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe has pointed out, the Government are embarking on a massive reorganisation of the health service, so there is a considerable degree of inconsistency. If it is acceptable for the Government to reorganise the national health service—in their view, to make it better or more effective—why is it wrong for local government to be reorganised in some form for the same purpose, particularly when local government is faced with significant reductions in its budget?
The other interesting point is that the Minister supports a reduction in the cost of politics in this country—he supports the Bill to reduce the number of MPs, which is the underlying reason for that—yet he has rejected this proposal, which would have reduced the number of councillors in Norwich and Exeter, thereby reducing the cost of politics.
As I have already said, it is important that people in Norwich and Exeter know where they stand. I hope that hon. Members, having listened to the debate and the interventions of my hon. and right hon. Friends, will reflect on that and support my amendment.

Ben Bradshaw: My hon. Friend may wish to comment on the Minister’s point about the potential for collaboration and give his views on whether he thinks that this has any chance of having the same status as unitary government. In the case of Devon and Exeter, such collaboration is virtually non-existent. Exeter city council has just been deliberately excluded by the county council from the local economic partnership, which is one of the reasons that that local economic partnership has been a total shambles.

Chris Williamson: My right hon. Friend points out a significant problem with local collaboration. While I welcome local collaboration—we all want to see collaboration between authorities and between the different agencies providing public services—it is clear that if the structure is not right, it makes it extremely difficult to wring out those savings that are absolutely vital in the present climate, when all public sector organisations will see a large reduction in their budgets, and local authorities will see a reduction of 28% over the next few years with most of those cuts being front-loaded. To rule out a proposal that could wring out significant efficiencies, in a much more effective way than collaboration with other authorities in a two-tier structure could bring, is complete and utter madness. I repeat my point that I hope that Government Members will reflect on how they vote based on the remarks of Opposition Members.

Bob Neill: Is the hon. Gentleman really saying that it is necessary to spend the £40 million on restructuring and that the savings could not be achieved through joint working?

Chris Williamson: I will come on to that point when we are considering the next amendment. The Minister is not giving all of the facts when he makes that comment. What he is ignoring—this was made clear in the impact assessment that was provided by his Department—is that while the costs of restructuring in Norwich and Exeter would be £40 million, the savings over that same period would £39.4 million. The total cost, therefore, is around £600,000. The Minister is also ignoring that there would then be ongoing savings in excess of £6 million a year. For Government Members to claim that they favour value for money and then to ignore this opportunity and the advice and information provided by their civil servants seems again, to repeat the point, to be complete and utter madness.

Duncan Hames: Talk of savings will astound council tax payers in Wiltshire, where under this process £8 million has been spent in severance payments to fewer than 40 senior council officers and where, under the flawed Act passed by the previous Government, the former interim chief executive of Wiltshire council was entitled to total remuneration in his final year in office of £500,000, even though he did not apply for the permanent position in the new council.

Chris Williamson: I am not sure that that point is entirely relevant, particularly when one considers that the hon. Gentleman’s Government have just agreed cuts in local authority funding of 28% over the next four years, which will see at least 500,000 local government workers made redundant. His argument does not stack up. He cannot argue that point on the one hand and then sign up to making wholesale massive cuts—unheard of in living memory—to local government jobs, which are far higher than occurred under Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Administration. Whether severance pay is too high is not the point, irrespective of the level of severance pay given to some of the higher paid officers within the authority.

Ben Bradshaw: It may be helpful for my hon. Friend to know, if he was not already aware, that the Wiltshire unitary bid was driven by a Conservative-run council and it was given to a Conservative-run council by a Labour Government.

Graham Brady: Before the hon. Gentleman replies, I have allowed quite a wide-ranging debate, which may help to preclude the possibility of a debate on clause stand part, but I would be grateful if Members tried to bring this to a conclusion reasonably soon.

Chris Williamson: Thank you for your guidance, Mr Brady. The point made by my right hon. Friend is pertinent, and it is important to have it on the record.
In conclusion, there is a case for some opportunity to be given for the reconsideration of this matter within a three-year period—it could be done before the end of the three years—to give some certainty to the people of Norwich and Exeter and to their respective representatives. It is not an extreme amendment in any way, shape or form; it is a reasonable amendment, which I hope any reasonable, fair-minded Member would support in the Division.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 9.

Question accordingly negatived.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

The Committee divided: Ayes 9, Noes 5.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Ben Bradshaw: I beg to move amendment 1, in clause2, page1, line14,leave out subsection (2) and insert—
The purpose of the amendment is to improve the access to and the quality of information available to the public in the areas under discussion about how and where their money is spent. We have heard much in the debate about the importance of collaboration and of local authorities working closely together. In order to hide the Government’s embarrassment at ignoring their support for localism in the two areas, and the forcing on both Exeter and Norwich of a more expensive form of government than is necessary, there has been much talk about the importance of partnership working.
I have already alluded to an example where the Government have signally failed in the past few weeks. The story of their proposal to replace the regional development agencies—on the south-west coast, we had a very successful one with local economic partnerships—has been “a complete shambles”. Those are not my words; they are the words of the director general of the Confederation of British Industry. We have fallen back into the bad old ways of local rivalry and political parochialism. In virtually all the south-west, there has been a failure to come up with proposals, because such collaboration simply has not existed. Cornwall and Bristol are the only places that have had their proposals granted.
One reason why the Devon local economic partnership has been such a shambles is that Devon, Torbay and Plymouth—Torbay and Plymouth are the two unitary authorities that were granted such status by the previous Conservative Government—have given absolutely no recognition of the role played by Exeter in economic development in those areas. In fact, even worse than that, Exeter has been completely excluded from the process despite a letter from one of the Minister’s colleagues, saying that in these areas it is important that the role of cities such as Exeter that are districts, but have an important economic role, be realised.
That is an example of an area where collaboration is simply not working. Even today, one of the Minister’s old ministerial colleagues admitted that the local economic partnerships are set to be a failure in parts of England. I could have told him that. Many of my local businesses and business organisations could have told him exactly the same.
My very strong view is that one reason for that collaboration and partnership not working well is that there is no transparency whatever in how council tax payers’ money is spent. My constituents in Exeter, for example, do not know, and they cannot find out at the moment, what proportion of the council tax that they pay and of the money that Devon gets from the Government centrally to spend on services is actually spent in Exeter.
That is a strong view, which is supported by common sense and the data that are available, and it was alluded to by the Minister in his statements earlier. He gave the game away a bit when he said that one reason why he opposed Exeter’s and Norwich’s unitary status was that their counties would lose the tax base. They would lose the milch cows, which we have long-suspected that we are in Exeter and Devon, in terms of the subsidy that our council tax payers provide to help with the costs of services in rural Devon.
You can think of a range of examples, Mr Brady, perhaps even from your own area, where the cost of keeping small village schools going is high. It is absolutely right that those schools should be kept going. In respect of the cost of road maintenance in a county the size of Devon, the amount of money that is spent proportionally in such rural areas far exceeds the amount of money that is spent in Exeter, for example. The relationship between the money that is raised from council tax and business rates in Exeter bears no relation whatever to the provision of services in that city
There is not only a financial problem, but a broader political problem. We have had several recent examples where decisions affecting Exeter have been made by Devon county council, where not only was Exeter not consulted, but no Exeter councillors were part of the decision-making process. The decision, for example, to site a waste incinerator in my constituency was made by the county council with no Exeter city councillors having any influence, and there are many such examples.
Similarly, I understand that, when the process was ongoing in Norwich, it was found that Norwich high schools were underfunded to the tune of £12 million. On the long history of educational performance, in the case of Exeter and Norwich, our schools were rather good before local government reorganisation in 1974. Since then, looking at the trajectory, there has been an unfortunate and disappointing decline in school performance. In recent years, it has got much better—certainly in Exeter’s case—with a big improvement in the performance of our high schools thanks to the extra investment by the previous Government, reform and, of course, the capital rebuilding of all of our high schools. Those schools are still, however, significantly underfunded, as are my primary schools, when compared with schools in rural areas.
The amendment’s impact would be that we would finally know how the public’s money is spent, and I cannot see that anyone would have a problem with such information being available. It would also clear up some of the claims and counter-claims that have dogged this whole process. While I have always asserted—I think the Minister agrees—that Norwich and Exeter massively subsidise Devon and Norfolk county councils in terms of the amount of council tax that we pay compared with the amount of spending in our cities, that has been contested at times. At one stage, Devon county council tried to suggest that, because of the high number of young people with special needs—we have an internationally renowned school for the blind and for the deaf in Exeter—and the costs of funding their education and needs as adults, it subsidises Exeter. We need to know the truth about that, and the public certainly need to know the truth.
In another recent example, we had the same situation with Exeter airport, which was an asset owned jointly by the people of Devon. When we tried to find out how much of the proceeds of the sale of Exeter airport have been spent on Exeter, the county council would not tell us. My suspicion is that it is very little. Indeed, a number of projects have recently been cancelled—for example, a new library and a redevelopment at Haven Banks on the Exe in the middle of my constituency—while a number of what one might call pet political projects in other parts of Devon have been given the go-ahead. A lot of money was spent on and, in some cases, wasted on those projects.
If the public can have an accurate view of how their council tax is spent and whether they are getting a fair deal—not just because the public have a right to be given that information, but because it would help to resolve some of these disagreements and disputes—it would aid the sort of collaboration that the Minister thinks will help to at least reclaim some of the savings that we would have made if we had moved to unitary status. How can the Government show that they are serious about making savings and about joint working and collaboration? There tend to be examples of collaboration between the two districts of Exeter and East Devon, rather than between Exeter and Devon because the relationships between those two authorities have been so damaged by Devon’s opposition to Exeter breaking free. There cannot be that collaboration unless people know what the figures are, who is spending what where and who is paying for it.
This is not simply a matter of justice for the council tax payer in Exeter; I am sure that the council tax payers of the other Devon districts of East Devon, Torridge, West Devon, South Hams and elsewhere would like to know where their money is being spent and whether they are getting a fair share of the cake. In terms of improving those collaborative relationships and moving forward on the basis that the Minister claims he would like to, I see no reason why he should not support my amendment.

Nicholas Dakin: I support my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter in the points that he has made. I speak as somebody who became leader of a unitary authority for six years after its creation by the previous Conservative Government. There was certainly a perception in the Humberside area that all the money was being spent in the Hull area, and that nobody really knew about the accountabilities or transparencies because of the how the two-tier government was working.
Certainly a unitary council creates a greater closeness between the elected members and the people they serve, and leads to clarity and transparency about purpose and accountability. I recognise that that will not be achieved, despite the wishes of the people of Norwich and Exeter. It is important that those transparencies and accountabilities are put in place in the way in which the amendment describes because, as my right hon. Friend says, having such clarity would assist us to create a platform for proper, honest and open collaboration. That is clearly how the Government are arguing these areas should be better served in the future. So let us have the transparency and accountability in place, as it will allow that collaboration to have the maximum opportunity of success. Such an approach will benefit people in these localities and develop the localism to which I think we are all committed.

Bob Neill: The reality is that the amendment would have the effect of delaying the Bill’s coming into force. An order would have to be submitted and debated before the Bill could come into force. That is the real motive, I respectfully suggest, that underlines the amendment.
The Government are clear that the future of Norwich and Exeter must be settled once and for all. I thought that that was also the view of the hon. Member for Derby North on the Opposition Front Bench. We have dealt with that with the minimum of delay and it has been a tortuous process, but concluding the matter and providing clarity is a priority.
The amendment suggests that the only way to get councils to co-operate and to achieve transparency is by enshrining the matter in statute. Those are the arguments that have been put forward by the right hon. Member for Exeter and the hon. Member for Scunthorpe. I do not accept their proposition, however, that we must go down that complex and deliberately delaying route to achieve transparency.
This Government are more committed to an increase in transparency of local authorities than any other. The requirement to publish all local authority spends of over £500 online is part of the transparency agenda. That will achieve far more openness and accountability than the complicated bureaucratic rigmarole of going through a statement and orders. That is practical transparency. We are not, therefore, going to take any lessons on the transparency agenda.
I do not accept that the recognition to change the status of the city councils has impacts on the surrounding county council, which should be assumed to lead to subsidy. There are varying costs, and to disaggregate in the ill-considered manner that is proposed would not deal with such an issue. It is worth remembering that it was the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), the previous Labour Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who said that the proposals on the unitary cities did not meet the financial criteria. Our view is consistent with hers. It is the Opposition who have changed their view, so that does not hold water. It was the accounting officer of the Department who warned that the financial criteria were not being met by the proposals that the Bill seeks to reverse.
I have made it clear that we do not think that the amendment is necessary to achieve transparency—it would be a delaying tactic. It also goes against the thrust of localism as we see it. It would impose enforced collaboration rather than encourage organic collaboration from the bottom up.
Of course, the new era of collaboration requires an element of trust and there must be more accountability. I have indicated the practical steps that we have already taken to deal with that. Local authorities must work together and share information, which is already happening. Listening to some of the arguments, some people might think that the people of Exeter and Norwich are not represented on the county council; they are—they are represented by democratically elected county councillors. As members of the county council, such people have the same rights as those who represent any other part of the county. There is no democratic deficit in that regard.
My experience has been in two-tier areas, and very often district-led county councils can work together collaboratively. I hope that that will be the case in those cities. That should not mean, however, that at the first sign of any difficulty Parliament must lay down a set of rules. We must treat local authorities and their elected members as adults. It does not mean that we should adopt a more command-and-control approach. Councils have the maturity to work together, and that is already happening.
In Norfolk, there is a joint investment plan for buses, which is signed by the county and the city councils, and First Eastern Counties buses. The shared legal service in Norfolk is made up of 70 lawyers from the county council, the city council and Great Yarmouth borough council. That will lead to real efficiencies, savings and improvements in quality of service. A procurement can be saved through that collaboration.
It is worth remembering that the city boundary in Norwich does not reflect many such opportunities. It was observed in the other place that only 14% of the planned housing and economic growth for the Norwich policy area actually lies within the city boundary, so collaboration has to take place to the benefit of all. The same applies to Exeter, where many of the great development opportunities, and the airport itself, which has been mentioned, are outside the boundary of the proposed unitary authority. To carve out unitary status on that basis would be an impediment, rather than an enhancement, to collaboration. I hope that the Committee will reject the amendment.

Ben Bradshaw: The Minister says that the amendment would delay the Bill, but the unitary bids are not going through anyway—they have been stopped by the courts. If he is right and there would be a small delay in the Bill’s coming into force, it would make no practical difference, as the Government have taken away the unitary status of Exeter and Norwich, and the counties have done that through a court challenge. A slight delay, if that is the effect of the amendment, would have no material impact.
The transparency that the Minister talks about does not happen in practice. The chief executive of my local authority sent me an e-mail about the amendment that I told him I was tabling. He pointed out that if the authority had become unitary, its spending would have become transparent and accountable; but, as it is, the two-tier system allows the county to evade clarity about exactly what citizens are getting for the large amount of council tax that Devon county council demands of them each year. Thus it evades proper accountability.
I received a similar e-mail from Norwich. I will not go into it at length, but it set out a series of examples of decisions made by the county council, such as switching off the street lights in Norwich, the proposed closure of the Silver rooms and Essex rooms and the restructuring of the county’s children’s services. Those decisions were all made without proper consultation with Norwich, which is the most important district in the Norfolk area, and certainly the economic powerhouse of the wider Norfolk economy.
I do not accept the Minister’s point that transparency can be delivered under the current system. Devon county council failed to answer my request for simple and straightforward figures about how much money the county has spent on the sale of Exeter airport. Although the Minister talks very well about transparency and collaboration, what happens when authorities simply refuse to collaborate and to be transparent? Absolutely nothing.
As I have already mentioned, in relation to local economic partnerships, Exeter was deliberately excluded from the Devon proposals in the face of a ministerial instruction that that should not happen and that districts of Exeter’s and Norwich’s economic importance should be included in local economic partnerships. What will the Minister do, or what can I do—he might have a suggestion—when a recalcitrant county council such as Devon refuses to be transparent or to collaborate with a city such as Exeter? The Minister has no answer. While he is driving through a Bill that is taking away our localism, he hides behind a façade of localism and collaboration. That may exist in some places, but where it does not, what will he do about it? Nothing. That is a betrayal of my constituents.
The Minister says that everything is all right because county councillors represent Norwich and Exeter on the county councils, but they are a tiny minority on the authorities. Virtually every decision that affects Exeter—about schools, social services, transport and strategic economic development—is taken by a majority of county councillors from Barnstaple, the South Hams and East Devon. They are not from Exeter and are usually of a different political persuasion from the Exeter councillors.
The Minister consistently fails to acknowledge that cities and rural shire counties have very different histories, characteristics and needs. Exeter’s needs in relation to economic development, education and poverty are very different from the sparsity needs and rural needs of Devon and Norfolk. I have already given him examples of county council decisions over which not a single Exeter city councillor had any influence, and I am told that the same has been the case in Norwich, so I do not accept his reasons for rejecting the amendment.
The Minister talks about disaggregation, as if only Exeter would be affected, but it is he who is trying to introduce this divide with Exeter and Norwich. Many rural districts in Devon would be equally interested in knowing exactly how much of the money that they give the county council actually comes back to them. This is simply a matter of openness and transparency, and he cannot tell us what happens when a recalcitrant shire county will not co-operate, is not open, and will not give Members of Parliament the information to which they are entitled.
I will not press the amendment to a Division at this stage, but I hope that the Minister will reflect on what I have said and take a more constructive approach on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause 1

Brought up, and read the First time.

Chris Williamson: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause would require the Secretary of State to report within two years on whether the existing arrangements in Norwich and Exeter represent value for money. We have had a long discussion this morning about the merits and demerits of unitary status for Norwich and Exeter. Indeed, we have discussed whether giving those two cities unitary status would provide value for money. The new clause would clarify the situation and ensure that it was a matter of record whether the existing arrangements provided the value for money to which the Minister has referred through better collaboration with the county council.
Councils are soon to lose about a third of their funding. Indeed, in some parts of the country, the reduction will be even greater when the abolition of the area-based grant is taken into account. Devolving power down to local authorities is fine on one level, and we certainly support it, but it is being done at a time when they will be subject to the most horrendous cuts. There is therefore a danger that the Government will essentially be devolving blame for those cuts. In that context, it is even more important that we know whether the existing arrangements provide value for money.
Creating unitary authorities in Exeter and Norwich would at least mitigate the worst impact of the coalition’s cuts, and the economies that would be achieved are clear. The Secretary of State himself says that he favours value for money, but he does not believe that creating unitary authorities in Exeter and Norwich would offer that value for money, because of the set-up costs. To some extent, we dealt with that in an earlier debate. However, the impact assessment undertaken by the Department showed that although the set-up costs were about £40 million, the savings during that same period would be £39.4 million, while the ongoing savings would be £6.5 million. It is therefore important to test these things and to ensure that the Secretary of State is placed under an obligation to bring back a report on the whole value-for-money question.
Ensuring that we get value for money is essential at any time, but in the current stringent economic circumstances in which the country finds itself, the self-imposed strictures on local government and other public services, as a result of the increased cuts recently announced by the Government, make it even more vital that value for money is provided.
Baroness Hanham conceded in the other place that, as a consequence of creating unitary councils in Exeter and Norwich,
“there ultimately would be savings”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 July 2010; Vol. 720, c. 696.]
Given the financial pressures under which all local authorities will be coming in the next four years, which were not known at the time of the previous impact assessment, there is now an even stronger case for looking again at the financial benefits of creating unitary councils in Norwich and Exeter. If Ministers continue to cling to the notion that their decision is about value for money, what possible objection could they have to an independent evaluation of whether the existing arrangements deliver the best value for taxpayers in Norwich and Exeter?
I will say a quick word about the High Court striking down the proposals to create unitary councils in Norwich and Exeter, to which the Minister referred earlier. The judge did not comment at all on the merits of the case. He said that the Secretary of State was perfectly entitled to create unitary councils in Norwich and Exeter. His only criticism was about the length of the consultation period, which was brought about as a result of the extended judicial review proceedings. When we refer to the High Court, let us be clear that it made no comment at all about the merits or demerits of unitary status in Norwich and Exeter.
One thing is absolutely certain: the existing arrangements are the most expensive method of delivering local council services in Norwich and Exeter, which is something to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter eloquently referred earlier. It seems to me that any Member who votes against the new clause will be setting themselves up as the enemy of value for money for taxpayers in Norwich and Exeter. For that reason, I urge the Committee to support the new clause so that we can ensure that we know whether value for money is being provided by the existing arrangements. What is wrong with that? What is wrong with getting the information that we need to make legitimate decisions? We surely should not be closing our minds, so I urge the Minister not to close his mind to the proposal but to support it so that we can all know where we stand.

Bob Neill: The hon. Member for Derby North puts the matter beguilingly, but I am afraid, as is often the way, that the reality is somewhat different. It is worth examining what the new clause would do: it would require an assessment to be carried out. That seems to bear little relation to real need with regard to what is set out in the Bill. We have looked carefully at the issue, which has also been considered in the other place.
It is worth bearing in mind that the impact assessments were produced on the basis of the financial figures submitted by the councils in relation to the previous bid. The Government themselves claimed that those figures did not meet value-for-money criteria.
As I indicated in the earlier debate, the implicit assumption is that savings can be made only through restructuring, and therefore the assessments, which set out costs of some £40 million, made assumptions about what savings would be made. However, the assessments made no generic or value judgment on the value of the restructuring itself.
Prior to the High Court case, the Department’s accounting officer, the permanent secretary, wrote to the then Secretary of State about those costings. He said that the costings, which were broadly in line with those cited by the hon. Member for Derby North, were effectively of £40 million, with gross savings of about £39.4 million, then £6.6 million or £6.5 million of ongoing savings. Although he said that he recognised that if the Labour Government’s proposed approach of the two city unitaries achieved the economic gains envisaged, and that there might be offsetting benefits to the public purse from increased jobs and extra revenues, he went on to say:
“The evidence for such gains is mixed and representations received provide no evidence to quantify such benefits.”
For that reason, as well as a number of others, he argued that the unitaries proposal, which the Opposition wish to sustain, was ill advised and would not represent value for money. With respect to the hon. Member for Derby North, he is taking the financial picture out of context.

Chris Williamson: The Minister quotes from a document that questions whether creating unitary status for Norwich and Exeter would offer value for money. Could he tell us what would be wrong with getting an independent report up to two years down the track so we can get a picture of the current position? It is all very well quoting a historical perspective, but we are now in extraordinary economic circumstances. What is wrong with that? If the Minister is opposed to this I suspect he is fearful of the information that it might provide.

Bob Neill: I have explained that the transparency requirements that we are placing on local authorities, which have already been put in place, will give far more information which will be of greater value to the residents of the relevant areas than the artificial process that has been described. Secondly, it betrays a centralist mentality. It makes the assumption that transparency and savings can only be driven forward by diktat. I simply do not accept that proposition.

Ben Bradshaw: The Minister accuses my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North of quoting out of context, but he quotes the accounting officer’s letter. He knows very well that the accounting officer’s reference to value for money related to the unitary county bid, which we all accept would have been the cheapest option but which had absolutely no support. The extra savings he said he was not convinced by were not the savings that he acknowledged and which the Minister’s own colleague in the House of Lords acknowledged would deliver savings to the public purse within six years for both cities, but the extra savings that we argued would accrue because of the economic driving role of Norwich and Exeter in the interim five-year period, which meant that the affordability criterion within five years should no longer have the status that it had in the past.

Bob Neill: I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman is not quite accurate on that point. While the accounting officer referred to the unitary county bid—indeed it is a matter of record because it is deposited in the House— he went on to warn that the then Secretary of State’s proposal to implement city unitaries was not value for money. The passage from his letter that I quoted refers to city unitaries, not the unitary counties. In that context he says:
“I recognise that if your proposed approach of a unitary Norwich and Exeter achieves the economic gains you envisage, there may be off-setting benefits to the public purse from increased jobs of extra local and national tax revenues and reduced benefit payments. The evidence for such gains is mixed and representations that you have received provide no evidence to quantify such benefits.”
That passage, which I have just repeated, refers specifically to the
“proposed approach of a unitary Norwich and Exeter.”

Bob Neill: I am sorry, but the right hon. Gentleman needs to go away and read the letter again. At the beginning of the quote that I referred to, Mr Housden, the then accounting officer, writing to the then Secretary of State, prefaces his comments with: “Your currently proposed approach”. I agree that the figures are broadly in line with those quoted by the hon. Member for Derby North, but they are in the context of a letter saying, “Your currently proposed approach”—that is, the currently proposed approach were the city a unitary. I am sorry, but the right hon. Member for Exeter seems to have got it wrong.

Chris Williamson: I am not entirely clear on what the Minister is saying. I thought that he was conceding that the figures I quoted on savings were broadly accurate—that it would cost £40 million, roughly, to implement unitary status in Norwich and Exeter, and that the savings over the period would be about £39.4 million. The ongoing savings thereafter would be about £6.5 million or £6.6 million. Surely that in itself demonstrates that the change is value for money, without taking account of the other points raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter.

Bob Neill: With respect, although we are agreed on the figures, the problem is that those are the figures that were given for the unitary bids. None the less, the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), rejected those bids on the grounds that they did not meet the financial criteria. The Secretary of State then proposed saying that there were new circumstances that enabled a departure from those criteria. The accounting officer’s letter warned against that course—that led to the judicial review and a successful challenge—and he also referred to financial concerns, which he set out.
There is no inconsistency in what the Government are saying. I have made the point that of course it is possible to achieve savings, but those savings do not require a restructuring of the kind that is proposed. There would be the costs of restructuring—£40 million—but no guarantee that we could not achieve those savings through joint working rather than restructuring, thereby saving upfront costs. That is our point.

Chris Williamson: I am not clear whether the Minister agrees with me or not. Does he agree with Baroness Hanham, who conceded in the other place that ultimately, there would be savings?

Bob Neill: We have said that savings can be achieved just as readily through joint working as through enforced reorganisation. I hope that there will be savings. The difference is that the Opposition, and the previous Government, were convinced that savings could be achieved only through restructuring. That brought a cost of £40 million, as well as savings. The Government’s proposal, and their consistent approach to all local government reform, has been that joint working can achieve those savings without the restructuring costs. It could not be much clearer.

Chris Williamson: The Minister suggests that there is no need for the additional report because the regime he is putting in place will ensure the transparency that we seek. Given that he has acknowledged that the savings will be in the order of £6.5 million to £6.6 million per annum, on the basis of a unitary council—

Bob Neill: I am not conceding that.

Chris Williamson: I thought that the Minister was. Does he accept that if the savings that he believes will be driven out are significantly less than that, that would be a failure and perhaps a reason to reconsider the possibility of unitary status for Norwich and Exeter?

Bob Neill: No. With respect, the hon. Gentleman distorts the argument. I agree that those were the figures that were quoted; we agree on the figures that we are talking about. Equally, the accounting officer was questioning whether the evidence on that point was consistent. I am saying that savings can be achieved through routes other than a structural unitary reorganisation. We have been perfectly consistent on that point.

Ben Bradshaw: It would be helpful if the Minister wrote to members of the Committee before Report stage to quantify the savings that can be, or have been, achieved by the sort of joint working he talks about. What does he suggest that I do about my county council, which refuses to work jointly with Exeter? What is the solution?

Bob Neill: The first thing is to ensure that there is sensible political working between the city council and the county council. I can think of plenty of parts of the country where city and county councils of different views can collaborate perfectly effectively. I am sorry if a difficulty arises and I will happily talk to the right hon. Gentleman about that after the Committee, but that is not a reason for changing the approach to an enforced reporting requirement. That will not solve the issue.

Ben Bradshaw: And will the hon. Gentleman write to us, justifying that claim?

Graham Brady: Order. Is the Minister giving way?

Bob Neill: I was about to deal with the second point. With respect to the right hon. Gentleman, the Government do not seek to set out and quantify a set of figures. We have been talking throughout on the basis of the figures that were submitted by the local authorities themselves as part of their bid, which the right hon. Gentleman’s own Government initially thought did not give value for money. The accounting officer questioned that judgment, and Members opposite are very keen to forget it—they seem to wriggle out if it. I am not as presumptuous as the then Secretary of State; I do not think that I know better than the accounting officer and do not seek to quantify things. I am, however, happy to set out for the right hon. Gentleman on Report the significant savings made by many local authorities across the country, through joint working, including those made by many authorities in Devon and Norfolk. I hope that the two city councils will join in those collaborative arrangements and drive out some savings. So, with every respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I will not take any lectures on that.

Ben Bradshaw: The Minister says that he hopes that the two city councils will join in the collaborative arrangements. He has not heard the point that I made to him, that it is not about the city council not joining in but about the county explicitly excluding Exeter. I gave him the example of the local economic partnership. What should Exeter do when Devon county council explicitly excludes my city from the LEP, which has led to the shambolic failure of this Government’s policies?

Bob Neill: With respect, the right hon. Gentleman knows full well that I will not fall into the trap of acting as judge in relation to an alleged dispute, when I have heard only one side of the argument. No Minister would do that, and I know that the right hon. Gentleman would not have done so either, when he was in office. I hear what he says, and I am sure that representations will be made to all those bodies by the Members of Parliament for the areas concerned. That is all that I will say on that topic.
There is good collaboration right across the country, and with political goodwill there is no reason why that cannot happen in those areas as well. None of that alters the fact that what is proposed here is, with respect, a rather patronising approach to the cities and counties concerned.

James Morris: The hon. Member for Derby North is concerned about cost. Does the Minster have a sense of what the independent report might add to the public purse, in terms of the top-down idea of adding further cost to the compliance on local government?

Bob Neill: Well, that is a very interesting thought. I must confess that because I will urge the Committee to vote against the proposal, I have not quantified it, but I shall see if some work can be done on that. But the fact is that none of these things happen out of thin air. Cost, time and effort are involved, and it is difficult to see, on the face of it, what added value would come from such a proposal.

Brandon Lewis: We have heard comments about transparency, and I fully support the view that local authorities can work together in partnership, as we are already seeing in Norfolk. We keep hearing the right hon. Member for Exeter referring to LEPs, and I think that Labour should consider how Norwich city council has behaved rather than looking at some of the other councils in Norfolk that have worked well together, including shared services as the Minister has mentioned. But with transparency coming through with the requirement to publish expenditure, does the Minister agree that the right way to ensure that local people get to see how the money is spent is surely to allow that transparency to follow through and then to do what we should—I guess in theory—all believe in, which is to allow democracy to take its course? If people do not like what their local authorities do, that is what local elections are for, rather than having a centrally controlled diktat that takes away the power of people on the street in local elections.

Bob Neill: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Transparency in its true sense is about accountability to the resident, the local voter and the local community, rather than a reporting-up type of transparency, which is reporting to the boss back here in Whitehall. That is the old mindset. I am afraid that the new clause betrays that mindset and I hope that hon. Members will reject it.
Not only is the proposal patronising, but it seeks to treat Norfolk, Devon and Suffolk differently from every other county in the country, and the two cities differently from every other city in the country. Why should there be a report on the arrangements only in those areas, but not anywhere else? It is a patronising and top-down approach that betrays the Opposition’s view. They might not accept that localism will deliver for the citizen. That is the implicit message, because they are not prepared to trust people to get on with it. They want to second-guess and double check it, and I am sorry that that is the case.
Ultimately, the Government believe that the new clause is yet another device that seeks to frustrate the intention of the Act and that it would add no value. Our arrangements will result in ongoing transparency and, I have no doubt, effective joint working, which will deliver rather more than the proposed requirement would.

Neil Parish: Does the Minister agree that if we stopped the bid for unitary authorities in Exeter and Norfolk, that would bring about greater co-operation between the two authorities? Letting it linger would stop those authorities working together.

Bob Neill: My hon. Friend’s point has considerable force. One of the sadnesses of opposition, I found, was the disruptive element that those unitary restructuring bids had in many parts of this country, particularly those two counties. When I was in Norfolk, for example, it was particularly sad that a good deal of shared working that was going on was potentially disrupted with the whole structure of local government being thrown up in the air. There are specific things that can be done and are being done, which I think is the way forward. There might be a genuine difference in philosophy between us and the Opposition on that point, but the coalition Government have a mandate to develop a genuine localism that is consistent with our coalition agreement and the platforms on which both parties stood. The top-down reporting requirement approach, with its additional burdens, is absolutely not the way to do that, so I hope that the Committee will reject the new clause.

Chris Williamson: I do not think that the Minister has adequately rebutted in any way, shape or form the cogent argument that we put forward on how the proposal would affect value for money. As for the accusation that Labour would treat Exeter and Norwich differently from other parts of the country, it seems to me that it is the Government who are seeking to do that. In his valiant attempt to try to justify the Government’s position, he was metaphorically on the ropes, because his claims were inadequate in the face of the strong argument in favour of value for money.
The Minister said that the Government will of course seek value for money, a new transparent regime and so on, but clearly there will be cuts and reductions in the amount spent, because they are making massive cuts in the grant to local government. We are looking for value for money over and above that so as to mitigate the full impact of the massive cuts that they will impose on the people of Norwich and Exeter. I simply do not recognise the Minister’s description of our position, which he says is patronising. How on earth can it be patronising to insist that the people of Norwich and Exeter have adequate information about the value for money provided by their local authorities?

Ben Bradshaw: Of course, it would apply not only to the people of Norwich and Exeter, but to the people of Norfolk and Devon, including Great Yarmouth. The people of Great Yarmouth might like to know how much money Devon county council spends in their district.

Chris Williamson: That is absolutely right. If the Government are committed to transparency, as the Minister claims they are, surely providing information so that people can make informed decisions is something that all of us could support. That is all the new clause seeks to provide. I simply do not understand why the Minister is so set on opposing this proposal. Perhaps it is only because it is has been made by the Labour party. Such a partisan approach is entirely inappropriate. Surely it is reasonable that we provide information to the people of Norwich and Exeter, who, from the jaws of victory, have had the opportunity to control their own destiny stolen away by the new Government.
That is all that we are seeking. The Minister seems to want to frustrate transparency by opposing this proposal, which would provide good information to the people of Norfolk, Norwich, Devon and Exeter so that they can judge whether the Secretary of State has made the right decision. To quote the Minister’s former colleague from Grantham—I do not know if they served in the House at the same time—it seems to me that “he’s frit”.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 9.

Question accordingly negatived.

Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill to the House.

Bob Neill: I am sure that all Committee members would want to thank you, Mr Brady, for your chairmanship, and to thank the Clerks and all those who have assisted us. I thank the Bill team who have assisted me and hon. Members on all sides who have participated in the Committee’s considerations.

Chris Williamson: I concur with the Minister’s remarks. It has been a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady, particularly as this is my first Committee.

Graham Brady: I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for making this a good natured, lively and quick-moving Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly to be reported, without amendment.

Committee rose.